The UK really does have a more punitive system of fines.

The owners of an East Reading kebab shop have been fined more than £7,700 for a string of food safety and hygiene offences.

Directors Saddique Khan and Mohammad Amjid Khan admitted six charges at Reading Magistrates’ Court of persistently failing to meet safety and hygiene standards at the Kebabish Original restaurant.

The pair were fined £1,000 per offence, and ordered to pay the prosecution’s full costs of £1,612 as well as the £100 victim surcharge – totalling of £7,712 – on Friday.

The take-away owners were charged with failing to keep the kebab shop clean and in good repair, failing to train food handlers, having inadequate drainage facilities, not cleaning equipment and fittings in contact with food, food cross-contamination and failing to ensure the Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point food-safety management system was being used.

The court heard Khan and Khan had been given time to improve the state of the London Road kebab shop under the Food Safety and Hygiene (England) Regulation 2013 but had failed to do so.